Milford: Matthew Denice's mother welcomes VOICE

Wednesday

Mar 1, 2017 at 7:03 PMMar 2, 2017 at 10:05 AM

Zachary Comeau Daily News Staff @zwcomeau

MILFORD - After her son was killed by an undocumented immigrant in Milford in 2011, Maureen Maloney asked any official who would listen to help prevent further loss of life at the hands of an immigrant living in the country illegally.

Last year on the campaign trail, then-candidate Donald Trump was the only Republican to answer her plea for action, and during Tuesday night's speech to Congress, he made good on that promise. President Trump's plan would create an office to support victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. Watching from her Milford home, she saw a connection between herself and the four families pointed out by Trump as having lost a loved one to violence by an undocumented immigrant.

“I think he’s trying to shine a spotlight on how prolific the problem is,” said Maloney who appeared with Trump at campaign events. “It’s not just isolated to a few families on the campaign trail; it’s an epidemic throughout the country.”

In 2011, Maloney’s son, Matthew Denice, 23, was killed when Nicolas Dutan Guaman, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador, was driving drunk, ran a stop sign and struck Denice, who was riding a motorcycle. He was then dragged a quarter-mile to his death.

The office will be called “VOICE” – short for Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement, Trump told Congress Tuesday night before drawing attention to four guests whose families were affected by immigrants living in the U.S. without legal documentation.

The office, he said, will provide a voice to people ignored by the media and “silenced by special interests." It will operate under the Department of Homeland Security.

The Daily News provided extensive coverage of Denice's death, Gauman's trial and Maloney's effort to raise the profile of such crimes; as well as another Milford area case in 2009 in which a man was killed by an undocumented immigrant.

After Trump's speech, immigration advocates expressed their disagreement. They said crimes committed by immigrants should not be singled out.

“We equally condemn all acts of violence and our heart goes out to families, no matter the skin color or nationality of the victim,” said Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA).

According to the The New York Times, "The Department of Homeland Security has estimated that 1.9 million noncitizens living in the United States — whether legally or illegally — have been convicted of criminal offenses and could be deported. The Migration Policy Institute, a research group that does not advocate immigration policies, estimated that 820,000 of those people were in the country illegally, including 300,000 with felony convictions."

Although Trump offered few details about what the VOICE office would accomplish, Millona said it appears to craft a vision of immigrants from “lenses of acts of violence.”

At the same time, Millona called on the President to condemn hate crimes against all nationalities by all nationalities.

“Crimes are crimes and criminals are criminals,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where one comes from.”

Although Trump is being lauded by many for his softened tone during his speech to Congress, many Democratic lawmakers aren’t buying his message.

“Words seeking unity ring hollow when preceded by actions that incite division and discord,” said U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy, pointing to Trump’s efforts to “tear apart immigrant communities,” among other things.

“For those this Administration has targeted in less than two months, we will remain vigilant,” he said.

According to DHS Secretary John Kelly's Feb. 20 memo on an immigration executive order, the office will - to the extent permitted by law - facilitate engagement with victims and their families to ensure that they're provided information about the offender, including immigration and custody status.

Further, resources currently used to advocate on behalf of undocumented immigrants will be rerouted to fund the office. ICE outreach or advocacy services to those in the country illegally is terminated, Kelly said.

Another incident where an undocumented immigrant was blamed for a local death was in 2009 when Richard Grossi of Milford was killed in a crash involving an undocumented immigrant from Portugal who was eventually deported before she faced trial.

Grossi's sister, Maureen Laquerre, has appeared alongside Maloney at a Trump event, but refused to comment for this story.

The cases have sparked a debate about immigration laws not only in the Milford area, but nationally.

Since her son’s death and Guaman’s 12-to-14 year prison sentence, Maloney has become an active voice against illegal immigration, including her involvement with the Remembrance Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the families of victims of crimes at the hands of undocumented immigrants.

The VOICE office is similar to what the Remembrance Project requested of Trump and each presidential candidate in March 2016.

According to Maloney, Trump was the only one to respond.

“He kept to his campaign promises,” Maloney said.

Denice’s death rallied considerable support from the community, but Maloney feels that in most cases, undocumented immigrants facing crimes have more support than the families of the victim.

Legal proceedings can be a “very confusing place” for distraught families that just lost a loved one, she said.

“There really is no support for victims of these crimes."

Zachary Comeau can be reached at 508-634-7556 and zcomeau@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @ZComeau_MDN.

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